USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Lodge no. 61, F. and A. M., Wilkesbarr?, Pa. with a collection of masonic addresses > Part 21
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Bro. Charles Miner wrote of him: "I knew him long, and more than esteemed him-I loved him as a father. In early life, in the ardor of an electioneering contest, I offended him -the blame was all my own. I made an apology; he re- ceived it well, gave me a friendly caution, and I owed much to his future countenance and friendship. The virtues which go to make up an excellent character, were all con- centrated in him. Benevolence, public spirit, integrity, shone eminently in life.
"I do not think he had an enemy in the world. His habits were temperate, his attention to business regular, and he fulfilled all the duties of a good citizen and good neigh- bor in an exemplary manner. His was not the meteor's glare which a successful military career throws around its votaries; nor the sparkling flashes of the orator or poet, that like the Northern Lights flash to the zenith in corrus- cations that amaze while they charm.
"His was the mild and steady lustre of usefulness and honor, gathering strength and increasing in brightness throughout a long life, adorned by every private virtue, devoted with unshaken fidelity to the public service.
"Farewell, venerable and beloved Friend! Honor be to your memory !"
HON. JOHN B. GIBSON, LL. D.
Of the many Judges who have been connected with the various Courts of law in Pennsylvania from the beginning of the Commonwealth up to the present time, JOHN BAN- NISTER GIBSON was undoubtedly the one whose reputation overshadows all others. "His great intellectual superiority gives him a prominence among men of his class which it is not likely will be attained by anybody else for years to come."
In the case of so distinguished a man as Judge Gibson, it is remarkable that a full and complete history of his life and works has never been written, especially when we con- sider that many members of the Pennsylvania Bar are known as faithful, painstaking and successful workers in the fields of historical and biographical research. The fame of a great jurist becomes the common property of the profession. If they do not protect and cherish it, who will?
Several brief biographical sketches of the eminent Judge have been published at various times during the last thirty years. The first of these,'chronologically and in impor- tance, is "An Essay on the Life, Character and Writings of John B. Gibson, LL. D., lately Chief Justice of the Supreme - Court of Pennsylvania," by the late Hon. William A. Por- ter,* of Philadelphia. This essay is an octavo pamphlet of
*WILLIAM AUGUSTUS PORTER was the son of Gov. David R. Porter, of Pennsylvania, and was born in Huntingdon county, Penn- sylvania, May 24th, 1821. He was educated at Lafayette College, Easton, Penn'a, and graduated therefrom with honors in 1839. He studied law in Easton, and was admitted to the Bar of Northamp- ton county April 23d, 1842, and to the Bar of Philadelphia April 26th, 1842.
He was District Attorney, Sheriff, and City Solicitor of Philadelphia between 1842 and 1858. January 20th, 1858, he was appointed by
PHOTOTYPE
F. GUTEKUNST
PH LAD'A.
HON. JOHN B. GIBSON, L.L. D.
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140 pages, and was published in Philadelphia in 1855. The writer intended that it should be published in a periodical to which he had occasionally contributed, but he changed his mind after the essay was written, and it was issued in pamphlet form. The design of the work is sufficiently indicated by its title. Very few copies of this essay are now in existence. The biography of Judge Gibson next in interest and importance is that contained in "The Forum; or, Forty Years Full Practice at the Philadelphia Bar," by David Paul Brown,* and published in Philadelphia in 1856.
Governor Packer a Judge of the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge John C. Knox. He performed the duties of this office until October 18th, 1858, when he resigned.
He was one of the Judges of the Court of Alabama Claims, at Washington, D. C., from 1874 to 1876. In 1871 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Jefferson College, Pennsylvania.
He was an excellent lawyer, a thorough scholar, a fine writer, and was the author of various addresses and a contributor to several law magazines. He died at Philadelphia June 28th, 1886.
* DAVID PAUL BROWN was born in Philadelphia September 28th, 1795. He received a very thorough classical and literary education, studied law with the Hon. William Rawle, and was admitted to the Bar of Philadelphia in September, 1816.
During a number of years following his admission he wrote largely for periodicals, and published several dramas which were put upon the stage with very good success. He soon, however, devoted himself to his profession, and was for many years the ablest criminal lawyer in Philadelphia.
He had a high reputation as a forensic speaker, and his eloquence and his thorough knowledge of criminal law made him very popular in all important cases. Throughout his whole career he retained his strong attachment to literature, and was greatly in demand as an orator on popular occasions. He was a zealous advocate of anti- slavery principles at a period when there was a strong opposition to them in Philadelphia.
He was sixty-one years of age when he wrote "The Forum." His "Golden Rules for the Examination of Witnesses," and "Capital Hints in Capital Cases," are familiar to all students of the law.
He died in Philadelphia July 11th, 1872.
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Another sketch is the very imperfect one contained in Dr. Nevin's "Men of Mark of Cumberland Valley."
The writer of this present sketch has availed himself of all these sources of information, and also of various other sources to which his attention has been directed.
John Bannister Gibson was born November 8th, 1780, in Shearman's Valley, Cumberland (now Perry) county, Penn'a. His ancestry on the side of his father, originally Scotch and then Irish, passed generally under the name of Scotch-Irish. In Scotland the family name was Gilbertson.
His father was Col. George Gibson, a gallant soldier of the Revolution, who, having commanded with success a regiment of the Virginia Line during the contest with Great Britain, fell covered with wounds at the memorable defeat of St. Clair by the Indians, on the Miami, in 1791. He had been County Lieutenant of Cumberland county in 1785 and 1786. He was celebrated as a humorist and as a wit. Though without any single positive vice, he never could advance his fortune except in the army, for which he was peculiarly fitted. He was a man of genius, but possessed no business talents whatever.
A brother of Colonel Gibson was the well-known Gen. John Gibson, who enjoyed the confidence of Washington, by whom in 1781 he was entrusted with the command of the Western Military Department. It was he who, as is generally believed, wrote the celebrated speech of Logan, or Tah-Gah-Jute, the Mingo Chief-a speech which for ninety years has been repeated by every school-boy, and admired by every cultivated person as a gem of masculine eloquence .*
* Logan's speech, beginning, "I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat ; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not ?" &c., was first published in the newspapers of America in 1774, after Lord Dunmore's
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During what is known as Cresap's War, General Gibson, who had many years before been a prisoner for a long time among the Indians, attended Lord Dunmore in his expedi- tion against the Indian towns; and, as he spoke the Dela- ware tongue readily, he was sent into the principal villages with a flag of truce and an offer of peace. It was while on this mission that he was met by Logan, who pronounced the speech that has been the subject of so much discussion. Upon his return to camp, General Gibson made an accurate translation of the speech, which, as it was much admired, was probably preserved by Lord Dunmore among the archives of the government.
General Gibson was a member of the Pennsylvania Con- stitutional Convention in 1790, subsequently an Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny county, and later, Secretary of the Territory of Indiana. He died April 10th, 1822.
John B. Gibson's mother was Ann, daughter of Francis West, a substantial freeholder, descended from the Irish branch of the Delaware family, probably before it was en- nobled. The peerage is an English, and, I believe, an existing one. His maternal grandmother was a Wynne. Owen Wynne, the head of the family, was the first com- moner in Ireland, and refused a peerage. Through the Wynnes the Wests were connected with the Coles of Ennis- kellen. Another connection of the family was the famous Colonel Barré, the associate of Lord Wilkes in his politics and his vices.
Ann West was born at Clover Hill, near Sligo, in 1744, and came with the family to this country about 1755. She was a well educated woman. She died on the 9th of Feb-
treaty at Camp Charlotte ; but its remarkable popularity was secured by Thomas Jefferson by its publication with comments in his "Notes on Virginia," as illustrating Indian character and genius.
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ruary, 1809. The subject of this sketch, who was the youngest of four sons, was born among the mountains of Cumberland. Fox hunting, fishing, gunning, swimming, wrestling, and boxing with the natives of his age, were his exercises and amusements as a boy. His mother directed his reading, and put into his hands such books as were proper for him. His father's collection of from one to two hundred volumes (among them Burke's "Annual Register") he read so often that years afterward he could almost repeat pages of them.
At the age of 15 he was placed at school in the prepara- tory department connected with Dickinson College, Carlisle, Penn'a. In due time he was admitted as a student in the collegiate department. He did not, however, graduate, but left college in 1800, and immediately began the study of law in Carlisle, in the office of a relative, the Hon. Thomas Duncan, LL. D.,* with whom he afterwards occupied a seat on the Bench of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
He was admitted to the Bar of Cumberland county March 8th, 1803, and immediately opened an office in Carlisle. Shortly afterwards, at the instance of a Mr. Wilkins, he decided to remove to Beaver, on the Ohio River. By hard scuffling he succeeded in purchasing a small horse, or cob, and having taken leave of his fond mother and friends, he set out with scanty purse and saddle-bags and an empty
* THOMAS DUNCAN was born in Carlisle, Penn'a, November 20th, 1760. He studied law with Judge Yeates at Lancaster, Penn'a, and was admitted to the Bar in 1781. Having settled at Carlisle, he soon acquired an extensive and profitable practice in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and in the Circuit Court of the United States for Pennsylvania.
His professional reputation was very high when, on the 14th of March, 1817, he succeeded Judge Jasper Yeates on the Bench of the Supreme Court.
He died at Carlisle November 16th, 1827.
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green bag, not, like Dr. Syntax, in search of the picturesque, but like a poor lawyer in search of a brief and of professional adventures. When within a short distance of Beaver he was struck by the ridiculous appearance made by himself and his horse. The animal being, as he expressed it, "too short" and he "too long," his feet nearly reaching the ground. In the midst of his quandary he heard rapidly approaching from behind a horseman who was almost im- mediately by his side, and with the familiarity of the times saluted him with, "Well, stranger, would you like to swap horses?" Before answering, young Gibson glanced at the stranger's animal, which appeared to be some seventeen hands high, and though rather raw-boned, much better adapted to the young lawyer's size than the horse he rode. After a little chaffering the swap was made, Gibson paying five dollars to boot. The trappings were removed, and everything being adjusted the Yankee mounted. "It ap- peared to me," said Judge Gibson in relating this incident, "that new life was infused into my old beast, and, starting off at a gait that he had been utterly unused to, horse and rider were soon out of sight. Mounting my new purchase, I could not but perceive that he seemed all at once to have lost as much alacrity as the other had gained. I had not proceeded one hundred yards before the horse fell flat upon his nose, and threw me over his head. This led, of course, to an examination of his condition, upon which I found that the horse was actually stone-blind. I was lawyer enough, even then, to know that as this was a patent defect, I was bound to look to it, and as I was not blind, the blindness of the horse gave me no right of action, even if I could have found the defendant. So pocketing the loss, as the Yankee had pocketed my five dollars, I rode off. This was my first adventure, and, from such an ominous begin- ning, it is hardly to be supposed that my career in Beaver -which, thank Heaven, was but short-was very pros-
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perous. I gained experience, however, if not in swapping horses, in avoiding it, and in future I looked at the eyes, as well as the size, of the horse."
Mr. Gibson sojourned in Beaver only about two years, and then went to Hagerstown, Maryland, from whence, very shortly afterwards, he returned to Carlisle, and re- sumed there the practice of his profession.
It was about this period of his professional career that a friend of his called upon him with the information that a fellow member of the bar had grossly and wantonly assailed Mr. Gibson's character. Whereupon Gibson, who was a man of herculean strength and lofty spirit, meeting the alleged slanderer soon after, publicly inflicted upon him severe per- sonal chastisement. But what was his dismay to learn, shortly after, that his informant had made a mistake, and that another person was the calumniator. To add to his perplexity, a challenge was received from the victim of his hasty and misdirected severity. "This," said Gibson, "is a bad business, and it is difficult to mend it; but, at least, having got into it, I will complete it. I shall accept the challenge of course. I am bound to do so for my folly, if not my fault, but before I am shot I must perform an act of justice. Having now found out the real slanderer, I will flog him at once." This he accordingly did, and upon the matter being explained to the challenger, and an ample apology made, a duel was avoided and the whole affair am- icably adjusted through the friendly interference of Judge Duncan.
Mr. Gibson's political associations were, from the begin- ning of his career, with the old Democratic party. The criti- cal condition of its affairs in 1810 called for the services of its ablest men, and he was in that year elected as the nominee of the Democratic party of Cumberland county a member of the State House of Representatives. In 1811 he was elected for a second term.
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While a member of the Legislature impeachment pro- ceedings were begun against the Hon. Thomas Cooper, M. D., LL. D., President Judge of the 11th Judicial District (Luzerne county), and Mr. Gibson was appointed one of the committee to consider the complaints made against the Judge. The committee reported the draft of an address to Governor Snyder for the removal of the Judge from his office. Against the address and the principles it advocated, Mr. Gibson placed on record a written protest, strong and positive. Out of ninety-five members of all parties, he was joined in his dissent by only four, one of whom was Thomas Graham, Esq., a member of the Bar of Luzerne county. The position taken by Mr. Gibson upon this occasion led to the intimacy which afterwards subsisted between himself and Judge Cooper; and upon the death of the latter in 1839, Judge Gibson furnished a sketch of the life of his friend for publication in Vol. XIV. of the "Encyclopædia Americana."*
Mr. Gibson's second term as a legislator expired in the Summer of 1812, and from that time until his death, his public services were exclusively confined to the duties of a
* THOMAS COOPER, M. D., LL. D., was born in London, England, October 22d, 1759. He was educated at Oxford, and afterwards studied law and medicine. He was admitted to the Bar and traveled the circuit for a few years, when, with Watt, the inventor, he was sent by the Democratic clubs of England to those of France, where he sided with the Girondists. Called to account for this by Mr. Burke in the House of Commons, Cooper replied with a violent pam- phlet.
While in France he had learned to inake chlorine from common salt, and he became a bleacher and calico printer in Manchester, but was unsuccessful.
In 1795, at the suggestion of his friend Dr. Joseph Priestly, he es- tablished himself as a lawyer in Northumberland county, Penn'a, where Priestly had located just one year before. Uniting himself with the Democratic party, Mr. Cooper violently attacked President Adams
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judicial office ; with this exception, that in 1828 his name headed the Democratic State Electoral ticket, and he assisted in casting the vote of Pennsylvania in support of Andrew Jackson for the Presidency.
In the Fall of 1812 Governor Snyder appointed him to the position only a little while before occupied by his learned but unfortunate friend Thomas Cooper-that of President
in a newspaper in 1799, was tried for libel and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of $400.
He was admitted to the Bar of Luzerne county, Penn'a, in 1796.
In 1801 Judge Cooper was appointed one of the Commissioners to execute the "Confirming Laws" relative to lands within the "seven- teen townships." (See page 263, ante.) The Board was constituted a tribunal to decide and quiet all questions of original right between Connecticut claimants, before Pennsylvania could proceed to invest them with title. The Connecticut claimants had disavowed the juris- diction of Pennsylvania altogether; and consequently, before the year 1774, when they were incorporated by Connecticut as a town (which was at first annexed to the county of Litchfield, and in the year 1776 erected into a separate county by the name of Westmoreland), there was no office among them for registering deeds or wills; nor any means of recording the descent of land in cases of intestacy ; and after the jurisdiction of Connecticut had been extinguished by the Decree of Trenton, and the present county of Luzerne was erected, Connecticut titles were not recognized by our laws, and their registry was strictly forbidden. The evidences of transfer, therefore, depended on documents in the custody of individuals ; on the minutes of the Sus- quehanna Company ; on the Westmoreland records-which embraced a period of only eight years ; and on the recollections of witnesses. The Wyoming massacre, which depopulated the country in 1778, materially lessened this source of information. This state of things necessarily rendered the establishing of a complete chain of title in many instances impossible. But everything was done by the Board of Commissioners that could lead to the discovery of truth. Everyone had a fair opportunity to establish his claim ; and if he failed it was either because the claim in realty had not merits, or he was prevented by misfortune or want of preparation from disclosing them.
The business languished in the hands of several sets of Commis- sioners, and fears were entertained that the project, from its magnitude
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Judge of the IIth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, com- posed of the counties of Luzerne, Tioga, Bradford and Sus- quehanna. He held his first court in January, 1813, in Bradford county, and occupied the Bench for the first time in Luzerne county July 26th, 1813, when he delivered the following charge to the Grand Jury :
"GENTLEMEN OF THE GRAND JURY :- Man is a social creature and formed for a social state; and society, being adapted to the higher principles and destinations of his nature, must be his Natural State.
"The end of society is the common interest and welfare of the peo- ple associated; this end must of necessity be the Supreme Law or common standard by which the particular rules of action of the sev- eral members of society toward each other are to be regulated, and this can be only obtained by government.
"Without government there can be no such thing as property in anything beyond our own persons; for nothing but Laws can make property, and laws are the consequences of government and authority. Indeed, without government we have no security for our liberty and lives, much less of anything else that belongs to us.
"Were we not protected by laws we could have no safety, no quiet
and the difficulties with which it was surrounded, would entirely fail. But owing to the extraordinary energy and ability of Judge Cooper, the last Commission cut its way through all impediments, and the great work was finally accomplished.
In 1806 Judge Cooper was appointed President Judge of the 11th Judicial District of Pennsylvania, which included Luzerne county, and he held his first court at Wilkesbarré in August of that year.
He was exceedingly stern and severe as a Judge, and, after he had occupied the Bench for three or four years, many of the attorneys and suitors who had business in the Courts over which Judge Cooper pre- sided, grievously complained of his tyrannical conduct while on the Bench. These complaints ultimately led to the impeachment of Judge Cooper for tyranny, and he was removed from his position and suc- ceeded by the Hon Seth Chapman, of Northumberland, who held his first court at Wilkesbarré in August, 181I.
Judge Cooper was an efficient supporter of the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.
He successively occupied the Chair of Chemistry in Dickinson Col- lege, in the University of Pennsylvania, and in Columbia College,
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enjoyment of anything ; but every man must be perpetually on his guard against all the world, and exposed to continual violence and injury from those who are too many or too strong for him. So that all our security from fear and danger, from the fraud and oppression of those who are more crafty and powerful than ourselves, from law- less confusion and distractions, from a state of war with all mankind -is due to civil government. In short, that we live in any tolerable condition of safety or plenty, and that we can call anything our own for one day or one hour ; that we are not in constant terror of mortal dangers ; and that we are at any time free from invasion of what we at present possess, by the frauds and force of others-is solely the effect of this great blessing and Divine appointment of government. From hence it comes to pass (as it is expressed in the Scriptures) ' we may sit down every man under his own vine and fig tree, and that there shall be none to make us afraid.'
"A free and equal government is one of the greatest temporal blessings the Almighty ever bestowed on mankind. Such an one in his great mercy he has bestowed on us, with a constitutional right to alter, amend, and new mould it in a regular and orderly way, so as to render it more conducive to the happiness and security of all. It is a structure having for its foundation the whole mass of the people !
"It is only, therefore, by living in the practice of religion and virtue that we can hope to transmit this precious inheritance to our posterity. When the root becomes rotten and corrupted the trunk and branches must die !
South Carolina, of which last named institution he became President in 1820. On his retirement from the office in 1834, he was appointed to revise the State Statutes, four volumes of which he had completed when he died at Columbia, South Carolina, May 4th, 1839.
He was a Free Mason, having been initiated into Sunbury (Penn'a) Lodge No. 22, February 11th, 1797.
He was a man of great versatility and extensive knowledge, dis- playing, as a lecturer, great erudition, and admirable powers as a talker. In philosophy, he was a materialist, and in religion, a free- thinker. He was a yoluminous writer and publisher. Among other things, he published in 1801 "The Bankrupt Law of America com- pared with that of England"; in 1812, a translation of the "Institutes of Justinian;" in 1819, a work on "Medical Jurisprudence." He also published "Observations on the Writings of Priestly," and "An Es- say on the Constitution of the United States."
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" But, although a free government cannot long survive a state of general popular depravity, wise laws executed with proper spirit may arrest the progress of moral disease, and restore the political body to its pristine health. Government, therefore, can only be supported by a due execution of the laws. This nearly concerns every good citizen, but more particularly public magistrates, and most of all it concerns you, gentlemen, who are selected from the mass of your fellow-citi- zens to discharge the important duties of Grand Jurors, and who from the nature of your office are the censors of the public morals within the county. For, while with one hand you shield the innocent from persecution and oppression, with the other you are to drag before the public tribunal the guilty violators of the public law. From this you may perceive that an important part of your office is to give informa- tion of all crimes committed in the county of which you have any knowledge.
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